A Practical Machine: The Wright Brothers in Dayton
Orville and Wilbur Wright wanted to create a practical machine—not a novelty or a gimmick—and they accomplished that at Ohio’s Huffman Prairie on October 5, 1905.
Dissident Memoirs Across Rust-Iron Curtains
Soviet dissident memoirs, like their authors, had to cross the Iron Curtain—an iron curtain of meaning and interpretation.
Jane Goodall
An intellectual powerhouse and dedicated conservationist, Goodall showed generations of humans how to engage with—and take care of—the natural world.
Waste Pickers Unite!
As one family’s story reveals, labor organizing and the development of a co-op for waste collection has improved conditions for precariously employed workers in India.
Two Seventh-Century People Found With West African Ancestry
A story of diversity and integration in early Anglo-Saxon society.
The Enduring Value of Student Newspapers
More than curiosities, college papers are unique pedagogical tools that help undergraduates achieve media literacy.
The Bee Dance Debate
Can insects communicate? In the middle of the twentieth century, scientists disagreed on whether bees could possess a “language” expressed through motion.
What Was Behind Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal?
Swift’s savage animosity towards the Irish Protestant elites is front and center in his biting (perhaps literally) critique of the landlord class.
Space Medicine, Peasant Rebellion, and Lots of Fish
Well-researched stories from Literary Hub, Aeon, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
The Politics of Our AI Overlords
Fears of AI often focus on domination by algorithm-powered capitalism, but science fiction once used societies ruled by computers as analogs for communism.